My biggest DIY project: The stairs

Well, I know it took forever, but here. they. are.

My gorgeous, beautiful, I-am-so-stinking-proud-of-them (and myself!) stairs:

 

I will give you a play by play on how I finished these up later this week. For now, let’s just enjoy, shall we? :) (Cause seriously, I am pooped.)

Sorry for the craptastic pictures – it’s a dreary day here, so the lighting wasn’t great for these, but I couldn’t wait to show you. (And I knew you would hunt me down if I didn’t.)

Some of you correctly guessed my little added touch to the project…molding. :)

Ah, duh.

Where is the molding you ask? Well, the Queen of Molding (that’s me) was totally thrown for a loop with the angles on this wall -- I could not figure them out for the life of me!

My Dad came over today and we played around with the miter saw and he figured it out! Whoohoo! (Thanks Dad!!) It involves making my own jig for the saw, and we figured out a super easy way to do it.

Umkay, I know I just lost about 90 percent of you with the “saw” and “jig” talk, so let’s get back to the pretties, shall we? :)

The landing turned out just beautifully!:

It stained up a little uneven but I have to say I quite like it. I thought it would take three coats but two was perfect.

I’ll do the same molding treatment on the upper stairs as well. You’ll notice the first few steps on this set stained a bit darker:

Not sure why, and it makes them just a tad darker than the landing, but I don’t. even. care. My Dad just says that the nature of pine, to vary just a bit.

LURVE IT.

(You’ll also notice I haven’t puttied the nail holes in the quarter round either. Still much to do!)

Many of you have asked about the darker band of color along the side:

I did that years ago and I absolutely love it! The ceilings in our stair way are ridiculously high, and it’s a visual thing that just helps to ground them. It’s just very thin (cheap!) molding, then I painted the darker shade of the wall color inside.

I’m trying to decide if I’ll go the traditional white for the molding on the walls. I’ve already painted them out, but of course now I’m thinking the contrast with this darker color would look really fab with the white molding too. Hmmm…will this one ever end? ;)

The biggest thing I was worried about was the slip factor on the wood stairs. I have to tell you – these are WAY, WAY less slippery than carpet – at least so far. The pine is just rough enough to give it grip:

Sigh. Love.

The stain I used was a poly/stain mix, so I’m still not sure if I’ll add a coat of poly or not. At this point, I’d rather not. But it would make them a bit shinier and give them even more protection. I’m going to wait it out and see.

Here’s a few more views:

  Again, sorry so dark. If the sun would come out, that would help.           

Here’s the most recent before picture I have…can you believe I didn’t stop to take a true before shot before I started ripping up carpet? Oh, you can? Umkay…

And after:

Did I mention I love it???

LURVE.